Article April 12, 2004 Issue

God never let us down

Through prayer, a Brazilian family learns that security isn't tied to a job.

By Dieter Goebel

In Brazil , with the unemployment rate at almost 12 percent, many people feel tense and hopeless about their financial security, especially those who are middle-aged. That's because age threatens to be a limiting factor in finding a job or even keeping one.

Although I was trained as an economist, I've faced unemployment, often for long periods of time, because of job shortages and fluctuations in the economy. Once, for almost six years, I had to content myself solely with temporary jobs and sporadic work. I did short projects and analyses, but nothing permanent. This affected my self-esteem and also had a serious effect on my finances.

For me, one of the most difficult experiences happened when our country was going through political changes and a severe financial crisis in the late 1980s and early '90s. I had left my engineering job to join my wife in the business she had established. She was a psychologist at the time, and she had developed educational toys and books for children.

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